


Wings

by nokkakona



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean, M/M, TIGHT jeans, Written in 2013, pilot AU, sorry for the wait
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nokkakona/pseuds/nokkakona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean moves into his new house only to discover the real reason why it was so cheap: it's directly next to an airfield, and the pilot next door is unsympathetic. Updated every other day, starting today (9/10) and ending 9/18.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Good Tailoring

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was inspired by the fact that my old flying instructor had the greatest butt i have ever seen in my entire life and half of Dean’s inner butt monologue consists of direct quotations from my mind during my first flying lesson
> 
> also this was written in 2013 and im not editing it, im just going thru my old spn stuff and discovering that i apparently wrote a lot and published very little

It’s not like Dean doesn’t know about the airfield three miles away when he buys the place. It’s the reason the place came so cheap, so he tries not to question it. He’s just moved from his apartment in the city, after all; a little noise doesn’t bother him.  
  
Earthquakes, on the other hand, do.  
  
The first time he wakes up to the entire house shaking, he knows he’s made a mistake. The rumble and whine of the airplane passing over head eventually passes, so that first night, he goes back to sleep and figures it was a one-time thing.  
  
But then it keeps happening. Every night, without fail, he wakes up to the house creaking and snapping like jazz night at a nursing home. Two weeks into living underneath the fucking London Blitz, Dean can’t take it anymore. He calls Shurley Airfield and asks what the airspace over his house is used for and when he finds out that the pilot making the flights every goddamn night is doing it for fun, his anger increases tenfold. The office gives him a name and an office to pick a bone with rather hurriedly and hangs up.  
  
“Tomorrow I’m gonna give this Castiel guy a piece of my mind,” Dean snaps at his front door. It doesn’t respond but Dean thinks it agrees with him.

* * *

When he first steps onto the airfield asphalt, it seems deserted. It’s kind of wet and kind of windy, conditions Dean imagines aren’t very suitable for flying, so he isn’t surprised, but he also doesn’t care. He just hopes the dick with the clearly religious parents is around somewhere. He scans the horizon of airplanes for any kind of movement until he hears a clanging from the other end of the airfield. Hands shoved decisively in his pockets, he makes a beeline for the small airplane the sound comes from.  
  
As he draws closer, it becomes clear that the man making the racket isn’t on the ground so much as he’s in the air. All he can see is a pair of legs climbing up on the left wing, and the closer he gets, the harder it gets to concentrate on anything but the dark weave of the jeans he’s wearing. For the life of him, the only thing he can think is, _Am I in a museum, because that ass is a piece of art._  
  
It takes him a good minute and a half to manage to close his mouth. When he realises he’s staring, he panics, puffing out his chest defensively, and stoically waits for the pair of legs to return to the ground.  
  
“You Castiel?” he demands when they do, but the sharp tone he’d been planning on using evaporates the second the man turns around. His front is almost as good as his back. He’s got scruffy hair and a wide, flat face, as well as a mouth that vividly reminds Dean of something with fangs.  
  
He sighs and nods, wiping his hands on his shirt. Dean frowns as he notes that his blue tie is on backwards, but before Dean can say anything about it, the man speaks with such abruptness that Dean is startled. “Have you tried the basement?”  
  
“… what?”  
  
He raises his voice. “I asked if you’ve tried the basement.”  
  
Dean pulls a face. “Yeah, I got that part, and I’ll say it again: what?”  
  
“Sleeping,” Castiel clarifies. “In the basement.” Dean narrows his eyes. “It’s underground. If the noise doesn’t bother you, then at least the shaking will be gone,” he continues.  
  
For a minute, Dean flounders around, trying to find his conversational footing again. With a frown, he crosses his arms. “… you get this a lot, don’t you?” he realises.  
  
“Yes.” Abruptly, Castiel walks around to the front of the plane. Dean follows him.  
  
“Hey, I’m not done with you,” he says testily.  
  
“That’s unfortunate.”  
  
The dry response affronts Dean. “I—what the hell are you doing?” he splutters as Castiel bends over, hands resting on his knees, to peer at the nose of the airplane. It’s extremely distracting, and Dean’s having trouble remembering what exactly he came for.  
  
“I’m checking for debris,” Castiel answers. To Dean’s dismay, he stands after a minute, only to begin running his fingers over the propeller. “I don’t understand. Why are you still here? I already told you to try the basement.”  
  
Dean crosses his arms. “Yeah, that would be nice, if my basement was freakin’ livable,” he snaps with finality.  
  
Castiel turns back around to face Dean, his eyes squinting in the sun. “Then make it livable.”  
  
“… It’s not that easy,” he says after a minute.  
  
But even so, the idea has a ring to it.  
  
Yes, the idea, he like; but the fact that this ‘Castiel’ guy might actually have a point? Not so much.  
  
“When you called, you said you were a carpenter,” Castiel continues somewhat dryly, adjusting the collar of his jacket. “I assume you know how these things work,”  
  
“Yeah, but… it’s not really a one-man job. I’d need--” Dean sighs. He’s straying dangerously close to ‘whining’ territory, and even though he technically is here to whine, Castiel keeps looking at him with those round, unblinking eyes, and all Dean really wants him to do is bend over again.  
  
“Help?” Castiel prompts. “I can help, if you promise to not interfere with my flight plan.”  
  
“-- _money_ …” Dean finishes, narrowing his eyes, “but if you promise to not do any flying over my house until the basement is done, then I think we might have a deal.”  
  
It’s probably the combination of the heat, the wind, and the jeans Castiel is wearing, but somehow, Dean finds himself accepting Castiel’s offer of help. Later, when he calls his mom to tell her about it, she says Castiel knew what he was doing, and Dean just got scammed by good tailoring. Dean scoffs at her, but secretly, he thinks she might be right.


	2. If I Had a Hammer

When Cas turns up on his doorstep that Sunday with a button-down shirt and a hammer, Dean knows he’s made another mistake.

“What… what is that?” He gestures at the hammer, and Castiel looks down at it curiously.

“A hammer.”

“… I got that. Why is it here?” he prompts with eyebrows raised.

Castiel pauses, brow furrowing. “… We’re building things. Traditionally, hammers are used to build things,” he says, tilting his head.  

Dean pulls a face somewhere between incredulous and resigned. “Thank God you’re pretty,” he says with a dry smile.  

“Uh… thank you,” Castiel says stiffly as Dean ushers him into the house and out of the prying eyes of his neighbours.

The next time Castiel comes, he (thankfully) leaves the hammer at home. It’s replaced by a six pack and a smile, and Dean isn’t quite sure which one he likes more. His "tailoring" becomes increasingly distracting. At first, it’s not that bad; he wears mostly dress pants and khakis, which kind of take the fun away from watching him bend over drywall all day, but then Dean mentions it (“Cas, aren’t you worried you’re gonna get a tear in those fancy pants of yours?”) and Castiel actually listens (“No. But I’ll take your advice under consideration”).

The following week, he turns up donning jeans better suited for the runway than a carpentry job.  

Dean’s never been able to help the staring before, but it’s a lot worse now. Castiel catches him looking at one point and narrows his eyes uncertainly. Dean manages to splutter out, “Dude. Your jeans. Uh. Nice jeans.”

“I don’t own them. They belong to my brother,” Castiel says with a frown, surveying them with distaste.

Dean’s eyebrows jump. “… well you should seriously think about permanently borrowing ‘em,” he says, trying to contain his enthusiasm. “They’d go over real nice with the ladies,” he adds when he fails.

“Yeah, well, hopefully they’d have a similar effect on men.”

Dean panics for a second. _I wasn’t staring. Was I staring? Oh God, he thinks I was staring._ Then it dawns on him that Castiel isn’t referring to him – the pilot has returned back to work, completely oblivious to the fact that Dean was _so_ totally staring.

“Oh,” he blurts as he realises. Castiel glances up at him. “Oh, you’re-”

“I’m what?”

Dean pauses. “Doing a real good job,” he decides. “Get back to work, or I’m drinking the last beers without you.”

The fleeting awkwardness subsides, but the seventh time Dean accidentally hammers his hand into the wall while sneaking a peek at his construction partner, he figures maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

* * *

Castiel calls him one Saturday and tells him he won’t be able to make it the next day. Dean is irrationally disappointed, which manifests as irritation, so he demands an explanation. The revelation that comes next shocks him: Castiel can’t drive.

“What?!” is his first reaction when Castiel timidly admits it. “You’re telling me that you can maneuver a two thousand pound steel tube of death through the friggin’ _air_ but you can’t _drive_?”

“… yes? And my Cessna is not a ‘steel tube of death’.” Dean can practically hear the air quotes through the phone.

“Yeah, sure, Cas,” Dean growls dubiously. “But that’s not the issue here.” The issue is that Castiel doesn’t have a ride to work tomorrow, and that means he can’t walk across the road that separates the airfield and Dean’s house, which in turn means Dean won’t be able to spend time with him and his jeans tomorrow. “We’ve gotta teach you how to drive a car.”


	3. Low Rider

In retrospect, trying to teach Castiel how to drive in the Impala probably wasn’t the best idea in the world. Dean underestimated what a terrible driver Castiel really was, and it isn’t until the third time he almost dislocates one of Dean’s shoulders that Castiel admits that he’d actually had his driver’s license revoked for poor driving rather than having never learned to drive.

“You _what?”_ Dean’s pretty sure his heart skips about five beats, and his voice raises of its own accord. “Damn it, Cas! You didn’t think that was something I ought to _know?”_

“It didn’t seem relevant at the time,” Castiel mutters, staring out the windshield, pointedly not making eye contact.

“Oh, right, I can see how the whole ‘this is my baby, if you hurt her I’ll kill you’ speech made it _irrelevant_ ,” he snaps, surrounding the word with overly energetic air quotations.

Castiel looks down at his lap, looking far more like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar than any thirty year old man has any right to look. Dean sighs.

“Okay, you know what? Let’s do this one more time,” he says tiredly.

Castiel finally looks at him, and the small, almost hesitant smile on his face actually makes Dean want to cry. “Are you sure?”

Dean rubs his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Just. Turn the car back on before I change my mind.”

Castiel doesn’t waste any time doing as Dean says. Just as carefully as the first time, Dean guides him through what he should do to before he starts to drive (and this time, Castiel doesn’t scoff and cite how much more complicated pre-flight routines are). Then finally, he tells Cas to step on the gas, all the while watching the pilot’s foot.  

“Carefully, slowly… _slowly_ , I said, _slowly_!” Dean gasps as the car jerks forward, reaching across the seat to tightly grip Castiel’s upper leg. “Jesus fucking…” he breathes, eyes wide.

Castiel, eyes similarly wide, glances down at Dean’s hand. Dean stares at it for a moment before pulling away.  

“Uhm, ahem,” he clears his throat. “You know what, I think that’s enough driving for today.”  

Castiel licks his lips. “Yeah.”

* * *

 One Sunday, Castiel doesn’t turn up. Dean gets annoyed for the most part because did he just get _ditched?_ Then he gets a little worried, but not worried enough to stop being annoyed. He settles for a quick, somewhat passive aggressive text, and finishes putting the drywall up himself. 

* * *

He drops by Novak Flight School the next day, timing his visit at exactly twelve o’clock noon. It’s not too early (because he doesn’t want to seem _overly_ concerned) and not too late (because, well, he doesn’t want to be _that_ guy). The mood is uncharacteristically subdued, and Dean knows straight away something isn’t right.

Still, he keeps a swagger in his step as he leans against the secretary’s desk. Today, his nametag reads ‘Hello, my name is BUGGER OFF.

“Cas here?” he inquires. “He cut out on me yesterday.”

BUGGER OFF raises an eyebrow and leans back in his chair. His voice is laced with the heavy sarcasm Dean has come to associate with him. “Oh, you _just_ missed him,” he drawls. “Just as he was taking the _ambulance_ to the _hospital_.”

Dean’s heart drops into his stomach. “ _What_?”

“You heard me, Winchester,” the man sighs.

Dean ignores him and sweeps back through the glass doors, making a hurried beeline for his car. It’s safe to say that by now, he’s completely forgiven Cas for skipping out on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special guest appearance by crowley. let me know if that wasn't clear.


	4. What's An Airtug

Dean practically breaks into the hospital, and when he finally finds Castiel’s room, he’s relieved to see that Castiel is more embarrassed than hurt. “I’m fine,” he assures Dean. “Although I would not be adverse to more pain medication.”  

The tightly coiled tension in Dean’s chest releases. With a sigh, he collapses on a chair that’s drawn close to Castiel’s bed. “Jesus,” he breathes. “I’ll tell you something, Cas, you really had me scared there.”

Castiel furrows his brow. “It’s just a minor break.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean trails off. “I’m just glad you’re all in one piece.” Castiel makes a funny face, and Dean frowns a little. “Are you… on a morphine drip?”

“Is that what this is?” Castiel says with a smile, his voice breaking. Dean swats his hand away as he begins to tug at the IV in his wrist.

“Cool it, hot shot. I guess you feel all right,” Dean prompts, although he’s not quite sure what he’s searching for. “Do you? Feel all right?”

Castiel makes the face again. “I feel… fantastic. I could have died, but here I am.”

“Yeah, about that- what happened?”

Castiel looks down at his hands with a little smile. “It’s… it’s embarrassing,” he admits. “After our driving lesson, I… well, I thought I could practice on something similar, but less valuable. So I took out an airtug.”

Dean blinks. “You mean those- those little go-carts that pull the airplanes backwards?”

“Uh- yes.”

For a moment, Dean can’t think of anything to say. All he can hear is the slow and steady beeping of the heart monitor attached to Castiel’s chest. As the silence continues, he swears the beeping gets faster. “You could’ve died,” Dean says finally. “Come on, Cas, if you wanted to practice, you could’ve just asked.”

“Perhaps we both would have had near-death experiences, then,” Castiel says dryly.

Dean fidgets. “Y’know what they say: you see your life flash before your eyes when you think you’re about to die. But I’ve always thought what you saw was less what you have done and more what you _haven’t_ done.” He licks his lips. He’s not sure where he’s going with this. “You feel anything like that?”

“Not particularly,” Castiel says, a slight frown marring his brow. Dean pulls a disappointed face, slumping slightly in his chair. But Castiel speaks again, this time somewhat passionately: “However, there is one thing I find myself wanting more than ever.”

Dean scoots forward a little. His lips are parted from biting them for so long. “Yeah?” he encourages.

Castiel’s eyes lock with his, still as a painting. “White Castle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes, totally forgot to post this this morning. sorry for the delay !


	5. Dates

They arrive at the fast food chain a little past midnight. Almost no one is there except for a teenaged couple hiding in a back booth, eyeing the man in the suit escorting his hospital-mussed, cast-legged friend to the register. Castiel gives the server his order, and when she asks if there’s anything else they’d like, Cas pauses, but shakes his head. He waits until the server is gone and then turns to Dean.

“There is… one more thing I’d like,” Castiel says. Dean raises a hand to call over the server, but Castiel stops him. “Not from her.”

“Well? Spill, Cas,” Dean says.

“I’d like this to be a date.”

Dean just stares. He wasn’t expecting that - he wasn’t expecting that _at all_.

“I, uh… Cas…” he trails off, unable to find the words to say ‘Me too.’

The server returns from the back, two brown bags in hand. “Your order, sir.”

Castiel breaks eye contact and swallows. Dean gives the server a shaky smile and takes the food.

“I understand,” Castiel says, even though he doesn’t. He follows Dean as he walks toward the exit. “Perhaps we should just-”

“Can I walk you home?” Dean blurts out.

Castiel’s hand stops on the handle of the door. He turns back to look at Dean, confusion etched into his face. “What?”

“Can I walk you home,” Dean repeats with a smile on his face.

Castiel tilts his head. “… if you wish,” he allows uncertainly.

Dean pushes the door open for him. As they leave the restaurant, their shoulders brush together in the narrow doorway and Dean takes Castiel’s hand.

“What kind of date would I be if I didn’t walk you home?” he winks.


End file.
